


Union

by darkwood



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Awakening
Genre: Declarations Of Love, F/M, Gen, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-17
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-11-12 07:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/488315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkwood/pseuds/darkwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Late Awakening. Anders has questions for Justice - about spirits and demons, about the Fade, about inhabiting Kristoff. He's not prepared for Justice to have questions of his own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

         It had taken weeks for Anders to calm in the presence of Justice. Despite his desire for freedom, he had never been tempted to seek the aide of a Fade creature to find it. The entire episode that transpired in the Blackmarsh unsettled him, as he was always unsettled by those who held truck with demons. Being possessed of a demon would be worse than being kept by the Circle, in Anders opinion.

         Justice seemed to be no demon, though he inhabited the dead. Revolting though he was, Kristoff’s form was no more revolting with the spirit’s presence than any number of corpses Anders had come across before. The decomposition was disturbing, though, and despite the best of intentions – Justice seemed always to have good intentions – the stench often made conversing with Justice difficult for him.

         Leonie had been busy with the Veral and Woolsley all evening, and instead of holding conference with any of the living Wardens, Anders found himself involved in a conversation with Justice. They sat a bit away from the others at the end of the table, waiting for dinner.

         “Mages are the only humans aside from those trapped in the Blackmarsh that I have seen,” Justice explained. “I do not know what to do with all of the contents of this body. There are strange sensations, and recollections left within the flesh I inhabit.”

         “Emotions, maybe?”

         “I do not have emotions.”

         “But you just said-”

         “Only demons fall prey to such things.”

         The conversation had been halting, and in the face of Justice’s refusal to acknowledge the effects the human body he inhabited, Anders was at a loss for other topics. His eyes strayed to Leonie where she was in conference, and he wished that she was free.

         “You have feelings for the Commander,” Justice said.

         That surprised Anders and drew his attention back to their conversation. “I… yes, I do,” he admitted. It was strange. The others all knew about what was going on, but no one pointed it out that much other than Nathaniel, anymore.

         “I cannot help but wonder if what you feel for her is similar to what Kristoff felt for Aura.”

         “They were married,” Anders said. “I imagine it was… similar.”

         “Do not all humans feel the same about those they care for? What could be different from one to the other?”

         “I don’t know,” Anders replied. “I’m not ‘all humans’, I’m just one.”

         “But this emotion must be the same,” Justice insisted.

         “Why?” Anders asked. “Because the creatures of the Fade embody our emotions here? That can’t be a true reason.”

         “Not even I understand the true correlation,” Justice admitted. “But you must… what is the word for it? You must ‘love’ the Commander, to worry for her so.”

         Anders frowned at that. Not the notion of… of… No, what bothered him was that Justice was lumping it in with every other emotion felt. “ _Nathaniel_ worries about her,” he replied.

         Justice looked over at Nathaniel. Anders let his eyes follow, knowing what he had said would draw the other man’s ire in his direction. Sure enough, a pair of dark brows was furrowed in Anders’ direction.

         “This is not the same,” Justice said, shaking his head. He looked back at Anders, and those disturbing dead eyes bored into the mage. It seemed that once the questions began, they poured out of Justice in the same way that Anders’ questions about the difference between Spirits and Demons had. For every question that Anders answered, there was a why asked to the answer. For every evasion Anders tried, there was refusal that bordered on a demand for a response.

         Anders felt trapped more surely than he had been by the Templar in the Circle.

         When dinner was brought out, Anders was pleased to have an excuse to be free of Justice’s questioning. And after they had all eaten, Anders left the hall. He had a reasonable excuse. Her faith in his healing abilities and his own worry that they were insufficient had sent him back to practice he hadn’t done in years. In the Circle the healing arts were most often practiced either on apprentices who had injured themselves conducting a spell or on the Templar who guarded them. Anders had such mixed feelings on both that though he had always shown a great aptitude for healing, but had not practiced.

         When his spell had not been powerful enough to stop the ogre in the Blackmarsh, Leonie had leapt to his defense. Angry at the distraction, the ogre snatched her from its back and squeezed. The aftermath of the battle left Anders so worried that he could barely cast a spell on her at all, and then he’d been deathly afraid that he would cast it wrong, or too weakly and-

         His distress had been his first inkling of the depth of his feelings for Leonie. She had not, for a moment, worried of herself – or so she said – because she knew him to be a healer. After she as so injured for him and so trusting, he made sure that what she believed was true. At night he studied healing magic. Books he’d gotten from the Circle through Ambassador Cera, and whenever they went to Amaranthine he stopped in with the mages there to work in the clinic. Because of that his fellow Wardens made no big show of him leaving the hall.

         Once he found himself in his room, Anders tried to take up his usual studies. He sat down at his desk with every intention of following his usual nightly routine. In truth he wanted some distraction from the conversation that Justice had brought up. He could not answer such things to the Spirit if he had not answered them to himself, and though he had become quite comfortable with the… constancy of his relationship with Leonie, neither of them had ever broached the subject of love.

         Lust was certainly a part of it. Anders was no stranger to lust and the passion that it could inspire. He found himself attracted to things about her that he had not found pleasing before. Leonie was fond of embrace, and though she was not always clothed how he wished her to be when she wrapped her arms around him, he had grown used to firmness of the cool metal. He still preferred her without, but her lesson months ago about helping her out of it gave him the freedom to rid her of it when he saw fit.

         There was more to how he felt about Leonie than just lust, though. In the Circle he had felt generally concerned with the well-being of the other mages, particularly those he had been intimate with, but with Leonie he knew himself to be more caring. He was kind to her, something he had only dared express to animals before.

         Across the room, Ser Pounce-a-Lot curled up on his pillow with a soft purr. The noise drew Anders attention from the book he’d opened. Glancing at it again, he knew he’d never settle down enough to read anything tonight. There was no point in half-learning magic, it was dangerous. Rising, he stopped to pet his cat, making sure the small animal was comfortable. He needn’t have worried. Ser Pounce-a-Lot was adept at sleeping through just about anything, and wasn’t too particular about where.

         There had been some confusion between the two of them when she was so injured, but since her recovery, Anders made sure to check the hall every night. It was a subtle signal of her nightly invitation. As he peeked into the hallway he was not disappointed. Her door was slightly ajar.

         Closing his door behind him to keep the cat inside, Anders headed into the hall and made his way to the Arlessa’s rooms. It was strange, he thought, to be living in such a place. The Vigil was nothing like the Circle tower.

         Anders let himself inside and closed the door behind him.

         “Zut alors!”

         Leonie was not, at first, visible, so the curse startled Anders, who stopped in the doorway. “I could go, if you like…?”

         “Non,” her voice answered.

         “Leonie,” Anders said, concerned about not being able to see her. He checked under the bed, “Where are you?”

         “Over here,” she said, one hand reaching out from behind a screen in the far corner to wave at him. “Sorry, I-”

         “You know I don’t mind the Orlesian,” Anders interrupted, crossing to where she was.

         His anxiety lessened as soon as he could place her in the room, moreso when he found her fine behind the screen, her head bent forward over a basin. There was a comb in her hands and it was stuck in her wet hair. Where her neck was exposed, her skin was an irritated red.

         “What are you doing?”

         “I will never joke with you again about your sensitivity to rashvine,” Leonie complained, extricating the comb with enough force that some of her hair came along with it. “Though if I find out Nathaniel didn’t tell me to make me squirm all night…”

         Anders took the comb from her. “You’ve got rashvine in your hair?”

         “Yes,” Leonie grumbled, tipping her head up. There was a drying cloth around her shoulders, and her wet hair fell down against it. She’d taken off her armor, but still wore her leather beneath it, and a pair of gloves. “I can’t get it out with these on, and I know I’m going to hate myself if I take them off.”

         “You will,” Anders agreed, frowning at her hair. He hated the stuff, personally, but he liked her hair. His head was swimming with Justice’s questions from dinner, and he worried that they would all pour out of his throat if the conversation were allowed to turn elsewhere. He wasn’t ready to ask such things or to find out the answers. Contemplating the comb, he said, “So let me.”

         She glanced up at him from where she was seated. “Really?”

         “Yes,” Anders said.

         “Even though I ignored your complaining in the Marsh?”

         “It was complaining,” Anders said, moving behind her. “I do it a lot. Just stop dragging me muddy disgusting places.”

         Content with his acceptance, Leonie sat up straighter. Anders reached out to start with the tangles at the ends of her hair. “You know I can’t do that,” she said, “Warden’s business.”

         “I think that I’ve heard you use ‘Warden’s business’ on people for everything from looking for my phylactery to commandeering that ox cart to carry grain for the orphanage.”

         Leonie chuckled softly. Her eyes fell shut. “Wardens have a lot of business,” she said.

         Anders let out a snort at that, but focused on the task at hand. If he were careful, he’d get as little of the rashvine nettles on his hands as possible. He winced every time the comb caught in her hair, knowing how much he hated his when it was this tangled. The meticulous action let him clear his mind. She relaxed back against the chair. With her adjusted position it was easier to get at the worst of it, and it felt like no time before he was dropping the last of the nettles to the floor and freeing her locks from tangles.

         “You’re rather quiet,” Leonie said softly, looking up at him slightly.

         “I suppose I am,” he replied. “Your hair is thick.”

         She chuckled, turning in her seat to take the comb back from him. “I thought you’d noticed that already. You seem to enjoy putting it through your hands.”

         He did, he just hadn’t realized she’d noticed quite how much he liked her hair. She kept her hair pulled back faithfully during the day, but at night she let it down, and he could not keep from running his hands through it. He often wondered if there was anything in Thedas so wonderful as her hair. Now that he was finished, his thoughts came back, and he felt awkward with nothing to do standing behind her. “This from the woman who unties my carefully kept hair all the time?”

         “You are not thinking about hair, Anders,” she said.

         “How do you know?”

         “Because you were silent most of an hour, and that rarely even happens during battle.” She set the comb on the table behind her.

         “Damn,” he replied. “You caught me.”

         “Are you alright?” Leonie asked, reaching out to take his hands.

         “I…” Anders began, but realized he truly had no idea where to begin. “That is… I…”

         Leonie inspected his hands carefully, checking to see if he’d managed to give himself a rash from all the combing. Once she was satisfied he hadn’t, she reached behind her for a bottle of oil that had been beside the basin. She poured the oil into his palms. Once his hands were slick with it, she swiveled, putting his hands on her hair.

         “What-?”

         “You’re doing such a good job on my hair,” Leonie replied, “I thought you’d like to finish.”

         “Leonie-”

         “No more talking until my hair’s done,” she said. “Work the oil in evenly, root to tip. And be gentle with me, I was yanking on my hair for quarter of an hour before you came in to rescue me.”

         Relieved to have more reprieve from talking, Anders did as she asked. Her hair was thicker than he imagined. Working the oil in required him to concentrate. The flurry of thoughts left his mind as he worked.

         Once he finished, he let his fingers comb through it. In the firelight the oil made the copper color of her hair shine. Leonie’s head tipped back into his hands trustingly. He turned his eyes to her face, and heard the whispers of the questions rise to the surface of his mind again. Rather than give in to them, he tipped her head back and leaned down to occupy his mouth more pleasantly. Leonie’s lips parted to his kiss, and her tongue slid against his.

         It was all the invitation he needed to take her to bed.

         They lay together afterwards, her back to his chest. Being with her could easily clear his mind of things, and he blessed her for it. His lips found her shoulder, and his arm tightened around her waist. Leonie’s hand covered his, and she tipped her head onto the pillow. The back of her neck was still irritated, and he frowned to see it.

         He knew Leonie’s tendency towards wearing her armor for long hours. The irritation would worsen by tomorrow if he did not cure it now. It would be a simple spell. He wiggled his hand free of her grip and lifted it to cover the back of her neck. Focusing his thoughts to draw the spell he wanted, Anders smiled as he saw the redness abate.

         Leonie made a pleased noise as the spell worked on her. Anders slid his hand down her spine and back around her stomach, but the focus required for the spell had ruined the peaceful emptiness their lovemaking had given to his busy thoughts. He tightened his arm around her, and kissed her shoulder again.

         What did it truly matter? Justice was so sure of most things he said that it was hard to refuse the spirit’s opinion. Frowning, Anders leaned his cheek against her skin. Was this not enough? Since their misunderstanding was cleared up they’d shared her room. Leonie seemed perfectly content to spend the evenings with him after the late meal. She hadn’t confessed anything verbally, but the way she’d come to his room that night had been a physical expression. With Leonie that seemed stronger than any words. The Orlesian woman could be downright silent at times, he’d come to realize. The act, then, was stronger than any words that would come out.

         Still, Justice’s questioning came to mind. There would be no end to it unless Anders had an answer, and he would have no answer if he did not broach the subject with her.

         No, he would be honest, at least with himself. Anders wanted the words to go along with her silent declaration. He wanted to know if they were thinking the same of this thing between them. He wanted to know that he would never come to the hall to find her door was shut against him entering. The very thought of that scared him, and fear could lead to desperate acts.

         “We’ve… never spoken of love…” Anders commented softly, again kissing her naked shoulder.

         “I suppose we haven’t,” Leonie said in a sleepy voice. She settled comfortably, and the weight of her when she leaned her back into his chest told him she was ready to sleep.

         He hated to rouse her, but he was more worried of what he would face if he did not ask. Their first night together Anders had been too drunk to properly remember what had happened. Then he was injured by Ohgren’s drunken axe swinging the next day, and she had retreated from him with no explanation. Thoughts of her and wondering what had happened that night had nearly driven him mad. The fear he could taste at the thought of her withdrawing from him again was so much stronger that he could not bear it.

         “Perhaps we should,” he said, trying to keep his tone light. “I believe that’s the normal way of things… isn’t it?”

         “Is it?” Leonie asked in a light tone. “I thought the way of things was survival of the fittest.”

         “All’s fair in love and war?” Anders asked.

         She nodded, chuckling softly.

         “Well you’re certainly good at the war part,” he replied. “I’m not so sure about the other…”

         “And just what does a _Fereldan_ know of love?” Leonie asked, sitting up. She continued to show a lack of- well, he couldn’t call it chastity, as she spent most of her time in plate armor, but he could call it a lack of… inhibition. Leonie leaned back from him, one brow cocked challengingly. Her expression was playful. “What is it you seek to teach me, Circle Mage? Have I not been equal to your quick trysts in the store room? Or do you require the threat of a Templar’s rebuke to properly arouse you?”

         “I rather thought I proved more than aroused enough to please you just now,” Anders replied. The memory of that quelled his anxious thoughts.

         “Quite,” Leonie said, turning to lean her chest into his suggestively. Her arms wound around him, one hand straying to rest on his hip.

         They both chuckled. Once their chuckles subsided they lay together, quietly for a while. Enough time passed that Anders wondered if she had drifted off to sleep.

         “Leonie,” he said softly. If she had fallen asleep he knew he shouldn’t wake her.

         “Anders,” she replied, stroking his side. It tickled a little.

         “Do you love me? Because I… I think I’m in love with you.”

         Her breath caught as he said it, and her hand stilled against his side. “You _think_?” she asked, cheek against his sternum.

         Reaching down, he pulled her up so he could look her in the eye. “I’ve never been in love before. It’s not the sort of thing you really think about when you’re worried everything can be taken away from you. Love is… sort of important, and not something I…” he trailed off.

         Leonie’s responding expression was the same dubious one from when she came to his room that night. That look worried him until her expression softened.

         “Well then, let’s use other words,” she said. “I care about you. I worry about you. It makes me happy to be near you, and when you’re away from me I’m troubled.”

         “When you’re away I’m wondering if you’re killing something.”

         She shook her head and sighed softly, “If you didn’t want the answer, you shouldn’t have asked a question like that.”

         “Well it’s true,” Anders said, reaching up to brush her cheek with his thumb. He sobered as he traced the edge of her tattoo with his finger. The buzzing questions from dinner hovered at the edge of his stronger thoughts, and he thought about what she’d said. What was it that he _could_ say?

         “I want to be by your side, Leonie. No matter what else is coming, I want to be with you to… make sure you remember to leave off the armor every once and a while and to feel your breath against my neck when you finally fall asleep. I want to-”

         “Sounds like love to me,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him.

         Anders curled his arm around her, pulling her against his chest, and her arms wrapped around him in return. “You never answered,” he said against her cheek.

         “I love you,” she said, her voice breathy and soft.

         He smiled, gripping her more tightly, and kissed the top of her head. If this was love, as Leonie had intoned it was, and as she had professed to feel for him, it was a strange, strange thing. The feeling was stronger in him than many other things he could think of. She was dear to him, precious like some treasure he’d found. It was… hard to express. He did not know if it was what Kristoff had felt for Aura, but he did not think it could be so. Kristoff would have had a normal life, would not have been afraid to want things.

         “I love you,” he said to her in return. His heart felt full to brimming as he said it, and despite the hour and despite the exhaustion, he felt strong. His whole body sang with relief.

         Justice could say nothing, now, of Leonie that would distress him. In that moment, curled in her bed, Anders knew it to be true.


	2. Chapter 2

         Mornings were bittersweet. On one hand, waking with Leonie felt like being given a gift. And now, now that he knew what it was that he – that _they_ felt, stirring beside her was ever so precious. On the other hand, waking meant that the spell of the night was over. During the daylight he had to share her with the mission. They both would join the presence of the others, and Anders would have to watch how Nathaniel hung on her words, to suffer through Ohgren’s suggestive comments, or to see how the captain of the guard perked up at her approach. Anders could be in love, he was in love, but he refused to admit this was jealousy. He tightened his arm around her back and willed the dawn to roll back a few hours.

         Leonie stirred. Her lips pressed to the hollow of his throat even as she stretched her back. Anders was pleased that she slept the night through, for once. He thought it was to do with him, and it pleased him even more to think that.

         “Good morning,” she said with a yawn.

         “Good morning,” he said, kissing her lips gently.

         He released her when she sat up, familiar with her morning routine after months of being chided for slothfulness. She surprised him when she pushed him onto his back and leaned down, pressing herself against his chest and kissing him firmly. His whole body tingled with the contact. Anders wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her on top of him.

         She straddled his hips, grinning into the kiss, and murmured, “That is a much better wake up call.”

         “Any morning you like, love,” Anders said, stroking her back with his hands. Her skin was smooth and even over the scent of them from the previous night he could smell the lotion she used.

         “Unfortunately _this_ morning we have a long walk ahead of us.”

         “How long of a walk are we talking about here?” Anders replied, letting his hands roam across her. Maybe, he thought, just maybe, he could convince her otherwise.

         “The Wending Wood,” Leonie said. She pressed her lips to his again firmly, but climbed off him when he started to tighten his arms around her. “I’m going to clean up.”

         Sighing, Anders leaned his head back into his pillow. He knew that _practically_ it made sense for her to clean up, but he would rather have spent longer with her in bed. Quietly, he cursed her cleanliness and all her fancy soaps and lotions. She had no business smelling so nice when she tromped about in plate mail and swung a hefty broadsword.

         “You ought to get up,” Leonie called from behind the privacy screen where she had ducked to splash about in the basin.

         Groaning, he pushed up from the warm comfort of his Arlessa’s bed. “Farewell sweet dreams,” he muttered to it.

         Not being terribly familiar with the lay of the land, Anders did at least know that the Wending Wood was between the Vigil and Denerim. He couldn’t recall how far it was, but he didn’t doubt he’d know the distance by nightfall.

 

*

 

         To be precise, by nightfall he knew the distance from the Keep to the edge of the Wood. Given the reports of what was going on within, Leonie ordered a halt just outside of the treeline. It wouldn’t do, she said to them, to be taken on unawares by whatever was menacing the forest.

         Nathaniel disappeared into the evening light to ‘scout’ the area. Justice gathered firewood. Anders went about kicking out a firepit, and beyond him Leonie was rummaging through their supplies. There was not much to do that evening, and when they all regrouped, Leonie suggested that they get as much rest as possible.

         Anders knew what that meant, and he loathed it despite knowing she was probably correct. That meant sleeping in his own bedroll, huddled between Leonie (which was pleasant) and Nathaniel (which was not). Justice, in deference to the smell that he gave off, sat on the far side of the fire, and, because he did not sleep, kept watch.

         It was an odd situation, but Anders didn’t question it. Just like he didn’t question how Leonie slept in her armor, curled towards her broadsword instead of towards him.

         Just because he didn’t question it didn’t mean that Anders liked it. He’d read books about love before, and this wasn’t what he’d read about. _She_ was supposed to be the desperate one. _She_ was supposed to be the one who couldn’t get enough of him, not the other way around.

         He could care less that in the stories she was the one in a skirt and not him –  and Anders hated that he heard Ohgren snickering in his head about him wearing a skirt – or that she wasn’t the one in the stories carrying a sword. It didn’t matter, what mattered was that he wanted more of her than he was getting.

         The somewhat cold metal against his left arm only reinforced that. Anders heaved a sigh, fully awake and fully annoyed.

         And he wasn’t going to get any sleep now that he was annoyed.

         Anders sat up, sighing and pushing the blanket off of himself.

         Nathaniel stared up at him, and Leonie shifted to do the same.

         “Fine,” he muttered at both of them. He took the blanket and climbed to his feet, heading across the fire to sit down beside Justice.

         For a while there was nothing to be said. Anders picked up a stick and prodded at the fire, coaxing a little more warmth from it without adding any more wood. Across from them, the other two settled back down and fell back asleep.

         Only once it was still did the spirit turn to look at him. “Something troubles you?”

         “Yes,” Anders huffed. He kept his voice low, “No. Whatever.”

         “Perhaps you would like to talk about it.”

         “I’m not sure it’s the sort of thing you’ll understand,” Anders grumbled.

         “If it pleases you to be angry in silence, so be it.”

         Anders huffed, pulling the blanket up over his knees and wrapping his arms around them. Across the fire, Leonie’s armor glinted at him. He turned to face the trees, as Justice was.

         “The memories I retain suggest that song might comfort you.”

         “You’d have to know what was bothering me to know what kind of a song to sing.”

         “Do you think yourself so complex that I could not guess?”

         Glancing up at him, Anders frowned. “And just what do you think is the problem?”

         “You have surprisingly few of them,” Justice replied. “As you concern yourself with only your own affairs-”

         “That’s not fair,” Anders retorted. “I concern myself with-”

         “-it must concern the Commander.”

         Anders bit back whatever he was going to say about that, and tightened his fingers in the blanket.

         “You seemed upset last evening. I feel I should apologize for having disturbed you so.”        

         “It’s nothing.”

         “All emotion is the same to me,” Justice said. “I experience this world in shades of gray.”

         “Is that a Grey Warden joke?”

         “I am not inclined to create humor at the expense of others.”

         “But-”

         “If you do not keep your voice lowered, you will wake the two of them.”

         Anders turned a guilty look back at the two sleeping Wardens behind them. Leonie had shifted so that her hand was grasping the hilt of her broadsword loosely. In the middle of the night, despite any reason that might occur at another point in time, it seemed affectionate.

         She was Orlesian, that was ridiculous! Orlesians were supposed to love cheese and silk and perfume, not develop affectionate relationships with large weaponry.

         “I take it by your angry expression that my assumption is correct.”

         “Oh, piss off.”

         Justice offered no reply, and the two sat in silence.

         Facing away from the fire made it cold, and Anders wished he was back between the two relatively warm armored bodies on the other side of the fire. Anders hunched his shoulders, curling in on himself and casting a very small fire in his hands to warm himself. He could do without huddling on the ground at her armored back, tonight. He stared into the darkness of the forest.

         At some point, despite himself, he fell asleep.

         He had to have, because he woke to cold metal on his face. He couldn’t tell, at first, what woke him, and then he sniffed.

         Oh right.

         “My apologies,” Justice said. It was a very human thing to say, but by now Anders knew that he only said it out of courtesy to the humans he was speaking to.

         Straightening up, Anders shivered and shook his head. It was still dark out, and he lit his hands on fire to warm himself up again. “It’s my own fault.”

         “Perhaps you should rejoin the other Wardens,” Justice said. “The Commander positions you to retain warmth.”

         “What do you-”

         “Or had you not realized that the two armored bodies on either side of you kept the wind from you as you slept?”

         Anders glanced over his shoulder at the two sleeping bodies and then shook his head, leaning forward and resting his elbows against his knees. It felt like he was slow to thaw from the chill that lingered in his fingers despite the fire spell he was casting.

         “You seem to be uncertain of her affection. Why is this?”

         “It’s… sort of a human thing,” Anders grumbled.

         “This body has no such recollection. Once you are joined with another, does that not bring certainty?”

         “Maybe for someone like Kristoff,” Anders replied. He could feel Justice looking at him, sometimes. It was almost like the attention a demon gave off in the fade, only different. The sensation was different, of course. Not only was he _not_ in the fade, but Justice’s regard didn’t feel the same. Regardless of how else it felt, it was a little bit uncomfortable coupled with the line of questions, “But Kristoff wasn’t a mage.”

         “Does this make a difference? Both mages and Grey Wardens are set apart from the other humans.”

         “Of course it’s different. Do you think that the nice little wedded Gray Warden bliss you remember is the same as it would be for someone taken by the Circle?”

         Justice frowned.

         “I was taken from my parents when I was _twelve_. In chains. So yes, it’s different. Just being here is different, because for once no one’s chasing me to drag me back to something I never wanted.” Clenching his hands, the fire spell went out. “I lost nothing joining the Wardens that wasn’t already taken from me by the Circle.”

         Anders had not been so angry in years. Rather than worry about what had happened, he had chosen not to think of it. He lived the days he was given breathing, and took what pleasure was offered him. He did not welcome it now. Justice sat quietly beside him, what was left of his lips pressed together.

         “You should attempt to get more sleep,” the spirit offered.

         “Right,” Anders replied.

         He rose, pulling his blanket along with him, and returned to where Leonie was sleeping with her back to the space left for him and Nathaniel. The rogue peeked an eye open as Anders returned to settle down, but offered no comment.

 


End file.
